Hit List (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 20)

I WAS EATING my Egg McMuffin as Edward drove. He'd gotten the breakfast burrito, which always puzzled me, but hey, it wasn't my stomach. He'd eaten his before he put the car in gear. He still had that guy and cop ability to inhale food because you might not get to finish it otherwise. I'd never mastered it. If I'd been a regular cop I'd have starved by now.

"I know the food helps," he said, as he watched the road and drove carefully, precisely, as he did most things, "but you need to feed the ardeur soon, or am I wrong?"

"You're not wrong," I said, between bites.

"You could go into any bar in the city and find someone."

"No," I said.

"You complicate your life, Anita," he said, as he turned onto the street that the motel was on.

"I just can't do casual. I don't think I ever will."

"I thought the ardeur wiped out all that, and you just had sex."

"It can, but it can also be addictive, and some people are more susceptible than others."

"You mean like drugs - some people get addicted quicker than others."

"Exactly. I'd hate to pick some stranger and he turns out to be one of those. He'd be addicted to something he might never be able to find again, and I'd feel guilty, and have to take him home with me like a stray puppy."

"You would, too," Edward said, like he found it a character flaw.

"You wouldn't feel guilty, would you?"

"You mean could I fuck someone, addict them to the ardeur, and just walk away?"

"Yes," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"You're one of my closest friends, but I totally don't understand that."

"I know." He pulled into the parking lot with all the other police cars.

I finished the last bite of my breakfast and took another sip of Coke, because coffee tasted bad with Egg McMuffin. I wiped my hands on napkins.

He turned off the engine but didn't get out. I waited.

"You're not as ruthless as I am, but you kill as easily as I do."

"Thanks," I said, because I knew it was a compliment.

He gave me a small smile, I think to acknowledge that I was one of the few people on the planet who would have known it was a compliment.

"But if anything goes wrong, I know you'll see Donna and the kids right."

"You know I will, but it's not like you to be this morbid, Edward. You have a premonition?" I asked, and I was serious, because cops get those sometimes. A lot of them are a little bit psychic; it's one of the ways they stay alive.

"It's Peter. He needs me or someone like me to finish training him."

"You know I still don't approve of you training him to follow in the family business," I said.

"Being a marshal, you mean?"

"No games, Edward, not between us," I said.

He nodded. "He wants me to take him out of the country on a job when he turns eighteen, if I think he's ready."

"Will he be ready?" I asked.

He pursed his lips and then nodded. "I think so."

"You sound sad about that."

He nodded again. "You know how it is on hunts like that, Anita. Being good isn't enough."

"You have to be lucky, too," I said.

"I'm afraid that I'll be so worried about him I won't be careful enough."

"You're afraid if you take him that you'll get yourself killed protecting him and once you die, he'll die, too," I said.

"Yes," he said, and turned in the seat to look at me. His face was very serious, not blank, not angry, not threatening, just serious.

"Don't take him," I said.

"I can't back out on him now, Anita. It would destroy him."

I frowned at him, sipped my Coke, and tried to think. "What do you want me to say?"

"I'm about to ask a favor, one that I don't have the right to ask."

That surprised me, and it must have shown on my face. "What could you possibly ask that you don't have the right to ask?"

"Come with me on Peter's first hunt."

I blinked at him. I thought about a lot of things, but finally said, "When?"

"Next year, probably fall."

I nodded. "Just like deer season," I said.

"Yeah."

I nodded again. "I'll probably have to bring some of the bodyguards for me, and you know that I don't approve of what you're doing with Peter."

"But you'll still come," he said.

"Yes, I'll still come."

"I know that if you die, you risk pulling everyone you're metaphysically tied to down to the grave with you, everyone you love, and you'll still come."

I sighed. "I should talk to them first, to be honest, and I will, but we can't keep each other from living our lives; then we become prisoners, and none of us want that." I started putting all the trash in the little bag. "Besides, I think Jean-Claude is powerful enough to keep everyone alive. But if I'm going to risk all that out of the country, then we have to defeat the Mother of All Darkness and the Harlequin before next fall. I can't risk dying and letting her win."

He nodded. "Okay, I help you solve your problem first and then you help me with mine."

"Agreed."

He smiled, and it was a mixture of Edward's fierceness and Ted's good ol' boy. "I get to help you kill the oldest vampire on the planet who is just spirit, so we'll need magic to kill her."

"She may not be killable. We may only be able to trap her magically, but honestly no one's come up with anything that will work."

"So I help you do the impossible, and then you come on a much more mundane kill with me and Peter."

"I know you'll pick something tame for Peter's first hunt, so yeah, that about sums it up. You help me kill the unkillable, hunt and slaughter the most fearsome warriors and assassins known to either vampire or shapeshifter, and then I'll help you do something much easier." I smiled, I couldn't help it.

He shook his head. "It isn't the killing that will be hard with Peter, it's the emotional stuff."

"How's he doing?" I asked.

"He's my son," he said, but he didn't sound happy about it.

"You mean he's a ruthless, cold-blooded killer?"

"No, I mean he wants to be."

"Worse," I said.

"Much worse," he said.

"He's killed before when he needed to. He's saved my life and risked his own. He's a good man."

"He's a boy."

"Anyone who can stand shoulder to shoulder with me when the monsters are trying to kill us, and not flinch, isn't a boy, Edward. He's just young, and time will fix that."

"I hope so," Edward said.

I realized then what the real problem was. "You don't want to see him die."

"I don't want to get him killed."

"You won't get him killed, Edward."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I know that you won't take him unless you think his skills are up to the job. I know how good you are at training people for this; you helped train me. He's got good instincts and he's a shooter. He doesn't hesitate. He's brave as hell."

He looked at me. "You like him."

"We talk on the phone at least once a month, sometimes twice. He's a good kid."

"You called him a man earlier."

I smiled. "When he's shooting, he's a man; on the phone, he still sounds like a kid."

"He still has a crush on you."

I nodded. "I've noticed."

"It used to bother you that he liked you."

"A little, but he needs a friend he can talk to about the stuff that the two of you are doing to train him up."

"I didn't know he talked to you about that."

"I decided I'd rather know what you're doing with Peter than have to guess."

He looked at me. I looked back. We had one of those guy moments. He knew I didn't approve, but I'd still support him and Peter. The silence said it for us, all that and more. "What do you think of his training?"

"I think that you're a scary son of a bitch, and he's lucky to have you in his life."

Edward looked down at the steering wheel, his hands sliding over it, as if he just needed something to do with them. "Thank you for that."

"It's just the truth," I said.

He looked up, that serious, almost sorrowful look still in his blue eyes. "Let's get out and find Newman and try to reason with him."

"Reason how?" I asked.

Edward gave me Ted's grin, but it was his own words, "I'm a scary son of a bitch, let's see if I can spook him."

I grinned. "I like it. Scare him into giving up the lead."

"Tilford will listen to us; Newman won't."

"Let's go scare the rookie," I said.

He grinned. "Let's."